Preview — Blanca & Roja
by Anna-Marie McLemore

Blanca & Roja

The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they’re also rivals, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a danThe biggest lie of all is the story you think you already know.

The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they’re also rivals, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan.

But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans’ spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them. Blanca & Roja is the captivating story of sisters, friendship, love, hatred, and the price we pay to protect our hearts....more

This answer contains spoilers…
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The relationship involving the nonbinary trans character is of course an LGBTQIA+ relationship, and other than that, there is a secondary pairing…more
The relationship involving the nonbinary trans character is of course an LGBTQIA+ relationship, and other than that, there is a secondary pairing involving two older lesbians. (less)(hide spoiler)]

McLemore's books always read like centuries-old fairytales that villagers with restless imagination would spin around a fire. I have a wild suspicion that she resides on a separate plane of existence and only decides to every now and then visit our realm to bless us with her presence and books, only to immediately retreat into the moors of her homelands to dance with the Old Gods.

I’m always all too happy to ignore the less poetic reality of the outside world and lose myself to her stories.

So, wMcLemore's books always read like centuries-old fairytales that villagers with restless imagination would spin around a fire. I have a wild suspicion that she resides on a separate plane of existence and only decides to every now and then visit our realm to bless us with her presence and books, only to immediately retreat into the moors of her homelands to dance with the Old Gods.

I’m always all too happy to ignore the less poetic reality of the outside world and lose myself to her stories.

So, what’s this book about?

McLemore centers Blanca Y Roja on the del Cisne sisters who couldn’t have been more different—Blanca, light-skinned and golden-haired, and Roja, darker-skinned and with a heart that gleamed so red it showed in her hair. Blanca and Roja have always lived in a perpetual state of disaster preparedness: sisters in their family were offerings for the swans to choose from, and for many generations, they delighted in taking one of them and leaving the other.

Blanca and Roja’s fear of this curse was its own entity, but in the furnace of their terror, their resolve kindled. They would do everything to keep each other safe. Until the señoras sought to snip the thread between them clean in half, offering Blanca to spare herself by earning the love of a blue-eyed bear-prince, Yearling. Yearling was rumored to have been stolen by the woods with his best friend, Page, only to be then given back. To protect themselves from the scolding eyes of the town and Yearling's poisonous family, they hide in the del Cisne house, where the del Cisne sisters are saddled with the decision of who to save and who to sacrifice.

We painted the woods that night. We gave it the colors we were and the colors we borrowed. We were opening our hands. We were giving up the stories we thought we already knew. We were becoming.

Blanca Y Roja casts a cozy spell and is kissing-close to beginning with once-upon-a-time. McLemore weaves in and out of multiple first-person narratives a brilliant reclamation of Snow-White and Rose-Red with a wonderful Latinx feel threaded throughout and mesmerizes once again with a gorgeously supple story at the thresholds of identity, family and history.

She writes with an adept heart drawing feeling out of the words, and I wanted nothing more than to dwell in the honey-light of her writing. Hers are the kind of books you want to take in slowly, to wander through, to spend time in, for you'll likely find yourself the better for it. There is always the faintest glimmer of familiarity in them, as though you knew the story, but had forgotten it. It's breathtaking.

It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were, and that what you are is more beautiful than what you once thought you had to be.

There’s so much tenderness in this book, ineffable and aching, but with jagged edges too. This is a spellbinding tale of sisterly devotion in a world that searched for sparks of sibling rivalry to fan into a flame for the stage. The way Blanca and Roja sought solace in each other and found it, the way they had hidden in it, obfuscating reality and the fear they were powerless against, filled me with such a seethe of emotions.

I wanted to hold these characters' hands. Each of one of them is embroiled in a struggle for acceptance in a world that fears and distrusts them for who they are. Anyone who has ever been excluded can understand what they felt—anyone who’s ever felt heavy and trudging and trapped down here on the surface of the world while everything is slicing at you from the harshest angles.

Roja gives in to the scalding, scarring ache inside her—that fire she’d been born with. She doesn’t want to glide through life, unfeeling, so she breaks from the grooves she’s worn down inside herself thinking she’d never be anything more than a last resort, a minor player in a drama about her, her story always a mere subplot woven around someone else’s.

Blanca for whom people decided a life and made it an immutable truth that will govern her interaction with the world—because they couldn’t fathom that a woman is capable of multidimensionality, that she was more than one emotion, one trait, one story, but a million experiences and a million pieces. They held on to a perception of her that was caught in the thorn bush of the past but she broke free and tried on the sleeves and slacks of a new self however she sees fit.

Yearling wasn’t a creature of anger or envy, though he grew up surrounded by people who were, and few will ever know the violence it took him to become this gentle and soft-hearted, and how he’d taken the jagged pieces and spliced them into elements that tiled and tessellated and fit themselves back together again. Yearling is also adjusting to his disability, something that McLemore has portrayed with so much attention and genuinity and I am so grateful for it. I honestly love Yearling so much I don’t want anyone to touch his golden soul with their soiled hands.

Page is trans and uses both he and she pronouns. His queerness is never forgotten. Being genderqueer is simply who he is, and in those moments when others demanded he be different, Page cannot satisfy them, and be someone he is not. She doesn’t owe anything to people who were only committed to misunderstanding her. Page no longer stood there and accepted the weight of the ignorance of those who should’ve known better and tried harder, and hoped it left them lightened. But Page also learns not to always layer cynicism and distrust upon her life and think it futile to try to alter the pattern when fear had carved so deep a path. And as a queer person myself, I related so much to this: to hardening yourself by choosing to lock out everyone else—the ugliest stripe of self-preservation, born out of disappointment and weariness. It’s a lesson I’m still turning over in my head, trying to learn the shape of it.

I also loved both the romantic and platonic relationships in this book—how Yearling and Page’s friendship was a blaze of love, how Page & Blanca’s, Roja & Yearling’s love came softly, enough to hold, not enough to hurt. Everything about them was so tender and heart-shaped that the entire book felt colored by it. But mostly, I love the way they were a testament that, in time of despair, all we can do is reach for each other and hope the edges of our hopelessness dissolves, even just a little.

I think I will always be frustrated by my own inability to express how much I love McLemore’s books. How much I love her ability to not only dazzle—but to make you believe, your heart rising to so many possibilities.

My hope for you, reader, for all of us, is two sides of the same wish: that the world gives us each the space to write our own story, and that we leave room for each other’s stories. They are where our hearts survive.

A story about two sisters, and a prince who got turned into a bear, and all the ways magic can save you but also fuck you up.

This is such a beautiful, queer fairy tale.

On the surface, Blanca & Roja is a mash-up retelling of Snow-White and Rose-Red and Swan Lake, but the sheer amount of layers and thought that has gone into this novel makes it a whole number of other things, too. Peel back the familiar fairy tale aspects and underneath there is a moving tale of stereotypes, expectations an

A story about two sisters, and a prince who got turned into a bear, and all the ways magic can save you but also fuck you up.

This is such a beautiful, queer fairy tale.

On the surface, Blanca & Roja is a mash-up retelling of Snow-White and Rose-Red and Swan Lake, but the sheer amount of layers and thought that has gone into this novel makes it a whole number of other things, too. Peel back the familiar fairy tale aspects and underneath there is a moving tale of stereotypes, expectations and assumptions-- and how to shatter them.

Blanca and Roja are the latest in the long line of del Cisne girls - a Latinx family who are always cursed to have two daughters, one who survives and one who is taken by the swans. No matter what they do, one sister is always taken. And Roja has always known it will be her. How can it not be? With her fiery red hair and darker skin, she looks like the wicked girl, the witch, the fairy tale villain from all the stories.

Roja and fair-haired Blanca try to prevent either one meeting their fate. As they attempt to fight the curse (and the swans), another story takes place. A cygnet and a bear who the sisters take in and care for turn out to be two missing local boys.

The bear, Yearling, is a rich white boy from an abusive family, and the cygnet, Page, is a trans boy from a family of apple farmers. Two romances develop slowly through evocative description, with Blanca and Page's romance being especially sensual and exciting. The romantic themes move alongside family drama, magical prophecy and a desperate fight to avoid destiny.

And there's more than a little viciousness:

"Remember what I always told you."I let my eyes fall shut. "I have teeth."I opened my eyes in time to catch his nod."So use them," he said.

At its heart, though, it's a book about how you can read someone completely wrong. You can see someone's appearance or wealth or assigned gender and quickly make incorrect assumptions based on that.

McLemore also uses her trademark flowery prose for some thoughtful meditations on colour and how it is perceived - both in how Snow White and Rose Red are viewed by others, but also the wider perceived relationship between “fair” and “good” and “dark” and “evil”.

“If I wanted to, I could believe it was our colors that decided Blanca would be the gentle sister, pure and obliging, and I would be the cruel one, wicked and difficult. She would be the blessed daughter, the one the swans would spare. And I would be the one the swans would take. But my sister saw our story ending another way.”

Blanca y Roja is the best retelling I’ve ever read in my entire life. The way Anna-Marie McLemore reimaginedARC provided by Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

“If I wanted to, I could believe it was our colors that decided Blanca would be the gentle sister, pure and obliging, and I would be the cruel one, wicked and difficult. She would be the blessed daughter, the one the swans would spare. And I would be the one the swans would take. But my sister saw our story ending another way.”

Blanca y Roja is the best retelling I’ve ever read in my entire life. The way Anna-Marie McLemore reimagined Snow-White and Rose-Red was perfection in every sense of the word. This story is so beautiful and is a bright shining star in 2018 literature, and now one of my favorite books of all-time. No one weaves words and magic like Anna-Marie, and no other book this year has impacted me the way Blanca y Roja has. Please, friends, pick this masterpiece up upon release.

“There will always be two daughters. But we will always take one back.”

This book stars two sisters, who were born into a family where each generation of women birth two girls, one of which gets taken away by swans after her fifteenth birthday. Many sisters form a rivalry, so that the swan will pick the other one, but these sisters want to trick the swans into not knowing which one to pick, therefore, hopefully picking neither. But this story follows four people, all feeling a little out of place in their own bodies; all for very different reasons.

➽ Blanca - Light skinned, fair hair, soft, sweet, and doing everything in her power to make sure the swans never take her sister away.

➽ Page - A transboy, who uses he/she and him/her pronouns, and currently hiding from her family who supports that she’s trans, but can’t understand why she would still like she/her pronouns.

“Him and her, I kinda like getting called both. It’s like all of me gets seen then. Doesn’t usually happen, though. Most people can’t get their head around boy and she at the same time, I guess.”

➽ Roja - Dark skinned, hair so red it looks black, hard, angry, and doing everything in her power to make sure the swans never take her away.

➽ Yearling - A boy who has a terrible home-life. He is constantly physically fighting with his cousin, being egged on by his entire family, and because of it he is suffering vision loss in his left eye. Content and trigger warnings for physical abuse. Yearling wants to escape his family, their last name, and a secret that he knows, and he goes into the woods wanting to be something else. And the woods listen.

“The day I went into the woods, it was the story that chose me.”

And these four characters’ paths all cross with one another, and this becomes a story about self-discovery, unconditional love, and sacrifice. And two romances start, and they are both so equally breathtaking. All four of these characters are so expertly created that they all carved out little pieces of home in my heart. And they will live there forever.

Like I said above, this is a reimagining of Snow-White and Rose-Red, but this is Anna-Marie’s ownvoices, Latinx, queer, magical realism version. And it is everything. Everything. This book emphasizes respecting people’s gender and sexuality journeys, because gender and sexuality can both be so very fluid. This book proves how easy, but how important, it is to ask and respect everyone’s pronouns. This book highlights how we don’t have to be what our families, our communities, our world want us to be and that we can break broken and toxic cycles. This book shows how everyone will handle pain, grief, and trauma differently and that it’s okay. This book reminds us how powerful kindness can be and how the bonds of family, both blood and found, can change every story.

“That was the cruelest thing about the señora’s words, the truth it had left us: In my hands, the blue-eyed boy’s heart was currency enough to buy my survival. In Roja’s, it was worth nothing. And now she was the one who held it.”

And this book really is a love letter to the bonds of siblings. And not to make this review about me, but I’m very open about 1.) my brother being my best friend and 2.) me being very white passing. But my brother isn’t white passing in the slightest. Black hair, dark eyes, dark golden skin all year long. I’ve had long-term interactions with people who never knew I was Filipina until they saw my brother. And I will always acknowledge my privilege of my biraciality being white passing, but I will always love and honor my family’s culture and heritage. And like Blanca, I would give, do, and say anything to protect my little brother. Okay, I don’t want to get too sappy. But this book really is about loving all the parts of yourself; not just the physical ones that everyone can see at a glance, or the ones that everyone expect you to love. This book was perfect, but certain aspects of Blanca and certain aspects of Roja just really tugged at all my heartstrings.

“They had seen in me the softest, weakest part of my heart where I held my sister. They knew I would do anything, give up anything, if it meant my sister keeping her own body. And now they wanted me to prove it.”

Overall, no one writes and crafts like Anna-Marie McLemore. Every book I’ve read by her has rendered me speechless. I’ve never closed a book of hers that hasn’t left me with tears streaming down my face because of its beauty. Her words have healing powers, and her books remind me why reading is magical. And her author’s note is a five star read all on its own. I don’t know what the world did to deserve Anna-Marie McLemore, but we are all truly blessed to have her stories, and I’m forever grateful.

If you ever need a story that’s guaranteed to give you all the feels, break your heart, and look good doing it, Anna-Marie McLemore’s definitely the right woman for the job. If this tells you anything about how much faith I have in her writing, I don’t even like the fairytales this book pulls from, yet it’s still been one of my most anticipated releases of 2018.

‘There will always be two daughters. But we will always take one back.’

Predictably enough, I was not disappointed. Blanca & RojIf you ever need a story that’s guaranteed to give you all the feels, break your heart, and look good doing it, Anna-Marie McLemore’s definitely the right woman for the job. If this tells you anything about how much faith I have in her writing, I don’t even like the fairytales this book pulls from, yet it’s still been one of my most anticipated releases of 2018.

‘There will always be two daughters. But we will always take one back.’

Predictably enough, I was not disappointed. Blanca & Roja is such a gorgeously woven magical realism story, full of lovable characters that I can’t help wanting to protect, and an atmospheric setting that’s positively teleportative. Anna-Marie’s writing always immerses me so quickly, and this was no exception, as I literally was less than ten pages in when I first thought, “Wow, I love this book already.”

I could not let that kind of distance spread between me and the girl I’d mapped the woods with, both of us learning them as well as each other’s faces.

One thing that I’d like to mention is the magical realism aspect to Anna-Marie’s style, and how I think readers will fare with that in general. I know the lyrical writing style caused a lot of my friends to dislike her last release, Wild Beauty (which I adored, but art is subjective!). If that describes you, I think you’ll be happy to know that the magical realism facets of Anna-Marie’s storytelling felt substantially less prominent in this book than they did in Wild Beauty. In fact, if you’re looking for a book to introduce you to the MR subgenre, I think Blanca & Roja would be perfect for it.

Roja and I had woven the roots of ourselves together so well that if she was ripped from the ground, I would be wrecked.

Not only is the writing lovely, but these characters just won me over so effortlessly! Blanca and Roja, our title characters, are the most wonderful sisters. They care so much for one another and want so desperately to find a way to save one another from their family’s curse, that they’ve spent their entire lives trying to find a way to trick the swans so that they won’t take either girl. Their desperation and fierce protectiveness of one another will give you all the warm fuzzies, and even when they fight, their love for each other never leaves center stage.

But I would not let the swans write our story for us.

Besides the sisters, their love interests are precious, broken, soft boys that really stole the show for me. I loved the sisters, but I loved Page and Yearling. They aren’t living under the weight of a blood curse, they’re just trying to survive a world that they don’t feel like they fit perfectly into, for one reason or another. I can’t say much about Yearling without spoiling a mystery surrounding his character, but I will say that he broke my heart over and over. Page, on the other hand, is such a sweet, lovable little thing. He’s trans and nonbinary—modeled after Anna-Marie’s own husband!—and if you ask me, very few authors write queer characters quite as lovingly as Anna-Marie does.

“I don’t mind questions. Most people never bother asking.”

There is a lot of representation going on in this book, by the way. With Page, we obviously have this trans/nonbinary rep, but we always get this insight into how nuanced and specific his identity is to him, which is such a legitimate thing for a lot of people! With Yearling’s character, he’s recently become disabled (partially blind), and I loved how much time is spent focusing on his struggles to adapt, and how respectfully it’s handled in the book’s dialogue. There’s also an absolutely lovely f/f side couple that we spend a bit of time with later in the story, and I couldn’t write this review without mentioning the fantastic period rep that anyone who’s ever suffered from serious menstrual problems will relate so hard to, like I did.

To them, Roja’s hair was a sign of her wickedness. To them, I was weak, a girl born without fingernails or teeth sharp enough to get into anything.

Perhaps the most prominent piece of the representation is the struggle of colorism and racism that these beautiful Latina sisters go through. Roja is brown-skinned with dark red hair, whereas Blanca is mostly white-passing with pale skin and golden hair. Their community has used the differences in their appearances to form assumptions about the girls and which sister the swans will choose, and it functions as a divide between them at times. It draws light to how much pain colorism can cause within a community when one girl is valued above another for having a white-passing appearance, and it’s heartbreaking, but necessary.

It is not a story about realizing you have become beautiful. It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were, and that what you are is more beautiful than what you once thought you had to be.

Final thoughts: Blanca & Roja is an absolutely gorgeous fairytale retelling that everyone should read, especially if you’re a fan of magical realism to begin with, or if you’re looking for a fantasy story with endlessly diverse representation. The characters are a delight to read from, and you simply can’t help but become emotionally invested in the entire scenario from start to finish.

“The strong devour the weak, even when the weak are your own. It’s how any family gets stronger”

🌟 Let me just point again the fact that the cover of this book has not only 1 swan but 2 swans!! (bonus points for Elysia for discovering the second swan)!!

🌟 This is my third time reading a Magical realism book without knowing so. I think that is magical xD. I found out the hard way that this genre is just not for me. I prThis review and other non-spoilery reviews can be found @The Book Prescription

“The strong devour the weak, even when the weak are your own. It’s how any family gets stronger”

🌟 Let me just point again the fact that the cover of this book has not only 1 swan but 2 swans!! (bonus points for Elysia for discovering the second swan)!!

🌟 This is my third time reading a Magical realism book without knowing so. I think that is magical xD. I found out the hard way that this genre is just not for me. I prefer to go to books these days without knowing much. I read the synopsis of this book and I liked it and that was that. I got the book and read it. I just think magical realism don’t have good world buildings, obviously they are set in the real world but the magical laws are never explained and that seems like a shortcut for me and it leaves me always with many questions and wanting more. This book was no different!

🌟 The writing was good, I really loved the introduction and gave my friend the book while we were together so he can read it and he said it was great! So my problem was not mainly with the writing style.

🌟 My problem was more about the characters, there were 4 different POVs and I think it would have been better if it was only Blanca and Roja. The characters sounded the same and I needed to go back to the beginning of chapters to see who the POV was from.

🌟 The plot was kind of OK for me but I wanted more and I needed to understand more things. I just have this problem with all the books of this kind!

🌟 Summary: A typical Magical Realism book with good writing and nice story. The magical laws and characters just fell short for me and was sort of boring. It is a kind of me rather than the book problem.

One of my new favourite books of all time. The writing in this is absolutely breathtaking. The characters are lovely and heartbreaking. The relationships are nuanced and dynamic. Seriously, it was amazing!

We painted the woods that night. We gave it the colors we were and the colors we borrowed. We were opening our hands. We were giving up the stories we thought we already knew.We were becoming.

I feel quite an idiot who’s trying to articulate in words a beauty that lives in them and yet it transcends them. This book made me emotional and I fear I’ll be writing things that doesn’t make a lot of sense so just bear with me guys. I think it’s better if I just put in words these random thoughts th

We painted the woods that night. We gave it the colors we were and the colors we borrowed. We were opening our hands. We were giving up the stories we thought we already knew.We were becoming.

I feel quite an idiot who’s trying to articulate in words a beauty that lives in them and yet it transcends them. This book made me emotional and I fear I’ll be writing things that doesn’t make a lot of sense so just bear with me guys. I think it’s better if I just put in words these random thoughts that plague my mind demanding to be let out without trying to make them fit into a structure so here they are :

• Magical realism books about family dynamics and sisterhood are my new drug and I need more of them because they speak to me on so many levels, I'm greedy , I want more.

• I discovered that retelling can make me lightheaded and brokenhearted if they’re done well and Oh boy was this retelling a beauty, I feel my soul is singing.

Everything you mean well can twist and become something else when you’re not looking. Everything has an edge if you know to watch for it.

• Anna-Marie Mclemore, where have you been my whole life. you know it doesn’t matter that I hadn’t read you before, It matters that I read one of your books now and now I’m never going to stop reading your books, favorite new author of mine

• I feel I can quote the entire book, it was simply magic. The writing was artistic, poetic and felt like clouds in my blood. The words felt like a balm to cure the cynical old me and to make me feel full of love and wonder.

She was the girl I wanted, and the girl who knew me. She was the girl who let me choose, because she demanded no choices of me.

• This book has one of the most complex characters I read about this year. They feel so vivid, so authentic and so full of feelings. Roja, the one who though herself the sister to vanish cause she wasn’t enough so she’d lash out from fear. Blanca the one who loves without limits and who sacrifices for that love. The bear-boy who lost sense of his place and Page, the one who’ll learn that love came in different shapes and that people who really care we’ll see you the core of you and embrace you even when they don’t understand.

“You know, just because they don’t understand you doesn’t mean they don’t want to,” my grandmother said. “And just because they don’t understand now doesn’t mean they never will.”

• Blanca and Roja, a book about sisterhood and falling in love in the worst time possible is also a book about second chances, breaking the barriers that separate us from what we want to be and what we deserve to have and fighting against marginalization and how people needs us to fit into their image of us

• The best love stories are the ones who make you want to fall in love as well, so I guess this book has the best love stories, it was sweet, ad wild and passionate and tragic and it was so pure.

Every time I talked to Yearling I felt like I was reaching into some smoke-glass jar, grabbing at words I couldn’t see and hoping they were the right ones.

• I don’t think I’ve ever been in tune with characters emotions like with the four main characters of this book, their love filled me with love, their anger made me angry, their pain hurt my soul and that ending filled my heart with hope.

• This book changed something in me. It broke me and mended me, it killed me and brought me back to life. This book owns me.

The lie of who we were had killed who we might have been. It had buried us. It stripped us down into girls uncomplicated enough to be understood.

So there they are, some of my thoughts about Blanca and Roja, a beautiful story about love in its different forms, friendship, shattering expectations and loving who you are for who you are and being truthful to yourself. You should really do your self a favor and read this book, you’re going to love it, you will.

One of the most beautiful books I've ever read. Not just because of the language--which is divine--but because of the characters, and how real and aching and powerful they are, and how the love between them feels like a tangible thing that you can wrap yourself up inside even as it guts you.

I feel so tender toward these characters that I spent the last fourth of the book in tears, and books hardly ever make me cry.

A lyrical, stunningly beautiful book about sisterhood, family, love, and identity, this is magical realism at its best. Blanca & Roja is a modern retelling that is Snow White & Rose Red meets Swan Lake featuring two Latina sisters and a family curse that will turn one of them into a swan. So many themes are woven into this story I'm sure I will leave something out, but at its heart, it is a book about loving others and loving yourself as you are without the trappings of society's expectaA lyrical, stunningly beautiful book about sisterhood, family, love, and identity, this is magical realism at its best. Blanca & Roja is a modern retelling that is Snow White & Rose Red meets Swan Lake featuring two Latina sisters and a family curse that will turn one of them into a swan. So many themes are woven into this story I'm sure I will leave something out, but at its heart, it is a book about loving others and loving yourself as you are without the trappings of society's expectations. It also does a deep dive into gender, expectations of female behavior, and the issue of "passing" among people of color. Told in brief chapters with alternating perspectives, there are four point of view characters:

BLANCA: The "sweet" older sister with blonde hair and light skin who can sometimes pass as white. The favorite of most women in town to remain human.

ROJA: The fierce, angry, and temperamental younger sister with brown skin and deep red brown hair. Favorite of her father, but not of anyone else.

YEARLING: A boy from a wealthy but violent and unhealthy family discovering who he wants to be.

PAGE: A trans-gender boy who is non-binary (not always He or She), the son of apple farmers with the soul of a poet.

Society, family, and the looming swans want to pit Blanca and Roja against each other. Despite that, they share a fierce love and deep sisterly connection. That is put to the test, but the message of female sisterhood and female friendship rather than jealousy is one that I loved. It also has something to say about the ways in which society tells women to be sweet rather than angry and likewise discounts the ferocity of the gentle ones.

This was my first time reading from the perspective of a character who identifies like Page and the development of his character is respectfully done in a way that feels very nuanced and accessible to readers. The development of his romance with Blanca is achingly beautiful.

I know that the flowery writing and magical realism in this book will not be for everyone, but I found myself completely swept away into another world, full of both pain and beauty. The characters are fleshed out and even side characters in the form of parents and grandparents feel weighty. I loved it. I received an advance review copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own....more

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher which does not influence my review*

I’ve been enamored with Anna-Marie McLemore’s writing since her debut The Weight of Feathers. With each novel she has written, I have fallen even more in love, not with just her words but with her ability to weave together stories where sadness and hope, magic and reality meet as though they were two sides of the same coin. In Blanca & Roja, a novel inspired by the fairy tale Snow-White and Rose-Red, two si*I received a copy of this book from the publisher which does not influence my review*

I’ve been enamored with Anna-Marie McLemore’s writing since her debut The Weight of Feathers. With each novel she has written, I have fallen even more in love, not with just her words but with her ability to weave together stories where sadness and hope, magic and reality meet as though they were two sides of the same coin. In Blanca & Roja, a novel inspired by the fairy tale Snow-White and Rose-Red, two sisters have grown up knowing that a bargain made by their ancestor means one day the los cisnes, the swans, will come to claim one of them as their own, as they have done with each generation of their family. Their love for one another has kept them from falling into the same trap sisters before them have, allowing the fear of being taken from this world to overpower their love for one another. The del Cisne girls have always been viewed by outsiders as something more akin to witches, these strange and unknowable sisters who live in the woods and whose very existence they blame whenever anything goes wrong in town. With each passing day los cisnes do not come to claim one of them, Blanca and Roja grow more confident that they have outsmarted them. But the swans are not to be cheated and when two boys disappear into the woods, they are inexplicable lured into a story that could break both them and the de Cisne sisters.

Blanca & Roja alternates between four different perspectives: the del Cisne sisters and the two boys whose stories collide with theirs. Blanca and Roja are as different as night and day. Blanca has always been viewed as the more gentle of the two, her golden hair and lighter skin have made it easier for her to move around in the world, for people to see her as otherworldly and blessed, rather than feared. She instinctively protects her younger sister, wanting to save her from being taken by los cisnes..."

"We would be a fairy tale whispered in spring or a ghost story told in the early dark of October. They would forget that we were not two sisters in a fable but real girls, with real hearts that lay broken in our chests."

Anna-Marie McLemore’s writing style reminded me yet again that writing is, indeed, a form of art.And what a masterpiece this book was.

Never, in my life - past, present and future - will I be able to write"We would be a fairy tale whispered in spring or a ghost story told in the early dark of October. They would forget that we were not two sisters in a fable but real girls, with real hearts that lay broken in our chests."

Anna-Marie McLemore’s writing style reminded me yet again that writing is, indeed, a form of art.And what a masterpiece this book was.

Never, in my life - past, present and future - will I be able to write an even borderline passable, decent and worthy Rather Random Review™️ for this book. It’s physically impossible for me to write something that could actually explain how mesmerized, fascinated and deeply in love I am with this book, and that could show it my respect.

It’s magical realism at its finest; this could be a great book to pick up if you wanna start getting into magical realism since it’s delicate - not overly crafted - and beautiful. Simply beautiful.

The plot is intriguing, simple, and yet engrossing. The setting was magical and atmospheric, and lured me in incredibly quickly. But what really sold this book to me were the characters and the lyrical writing style.

I’ve already read and loved all the previous books by Anna-Marie McLemore, so I already knew what kind of gorgeous writing to expect - and Blanca & Roja did not disappoint.

The characters, though.The characters are always something new and fascinating, and these four are simply incredible. I wanted to protect them all with all my might.

The love between the two sisters was so strong and relatable (to me). Roja was proud and strong, insicure and ashamed by herself; Blanca was resourceful and loving, stubborn and loyal. They loved each other so deeply it was almost painful to read. Yearling - my boy. He was my favourite and I would thank him if he were to push me under a bus. Actually, I would throw myself under a bus for him, and he wouldn’t even have to ask. His story was heart-wrenching and hard-hitting.Page I wanna hug till the end of times. Thank for coming to my Ted talk. Page's arc was one of acceptance and coming to terms, learning how to love yourself and learning how to allow everybody else to love you. Also, the brotherly love that runs between these two was glorious; it warmed my cold cold heart.

The diversity and the representation in this book, though, take the whole goddamn cake and are something that should be worshipped. All the themes and problematics touched were so beautifully, delicately and appropriately treated, it was spectacular. - trans, non-binary love interest and the whole discussion around this.- latina main characters with their beautiful culture and the racism (and colorism) that comes with a different skin colour- a boy that has to struggle with a sight problem that renders him disabled and the respectful and delicate discussion that is around ableism - f/f romance on the side that just warmed my heart- representation for pre-menstrual pains

Now, though, it’s me. And that means that I have to point out a thing (or two) that I didn’t fully adored.

So, all the drama was dictated by miscommunication and I’m not really a fan of that plot-device. The characters just had to talk and be honest to each other, instead there are a lot of useless and stupidly kept secrets and hidden agendas that just create useless, and thus silly, drama that I sometimes thought to be a bit too much.

Moreover, some images and metaphors used by the author were, in my opinion, slightly overly-mentioned. On one hand, I liked it because it was like a common thread that unified the story as a whole. But on the other hand, I found these metaphors and images to be used a bit too often and thus they lost a bit of their power and impact. Which is a pity.

None-the-freacking-fracking-less! This book was spectacular, emotional and superbly written. With compelling characters, a magical plot and stellar representation.

Another great one by Anna-Marie McLemore!

"Maybe I was the dark and she was handfuls of stars, but we were still one night."...more

I’ve been sitting on writing this review since, well, literally after I finished the book. I always seem to do this when it comes to Anna-Marie McLemore books, because it’s just. Whatever I write will never fully express just how much I love her stories, her characters, her writing. Oh god her writing, I could wax poetic about it all day every day. It’s writing you sink your teeth into; it's sumptuous and decadent. There are very few authors who have su*Physical ARC kindly provided by Macmillan.

I’ve been sitting on writing this review since, well, literally after I finished the book. I always seem to do this when it comes to Anna-Marie McLemore books, because it’s just. Whatever I write will never fully express just how much I love her stories, her characters, her writing. Oh god her writing, I could wax poetic about it all day every day. It’s writing you sink your teeth into; it's sumptuous and decadent. There are very few authors who have such a distinctly purple prose writing that I could never match (and I wouldn’t even TRY to) because it’s all them. It’s everything, and it’s the reason I get so pulled into books like this. Books with magic--literal magic, but also the magic of love and friendship and family. Stories that I just want to reread because they’re worth a second look and because I miss them.

Blanca y Roja was no different. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s my favorite Anna-Marie book to date, and y’all know that Wild Beauty was one of my top favorites of last year. It is a fairytale, but it’s so much more than that. At its core is a love story between two sisters who are very different from one another, but who love fiercely. They may fight and break each other’s hearts, but at the end of the day, they will do whatever it takes to save the other. Roja & Blanca were brought up to, not hate, but to be in competition. Because one day, the swans were going to come, and they were going to take one of them away. It had happened to every generation of del Cisne girls. Nothing could stop it. del Cisne women had tried in the past, and failed. But Blanca & Roja refused to fail. And they were not alone.

As with all her books, there was a sprinkling of romance throughout it. There was Page, soft and lovely and a nonbinary transboy who just wanted to be seen. There was Yearling, the best friend, the one who just wanted to get away. Because it’s been so long since I read the book, I can’t remember as much about them, tbh (and that makes me sad and want a reread ASAP). But I ADORED their romances with the girls. Page and Blanca, Yearling and Roja. They each had their own stories, but they were all so intertwined. I loved how Page had a safe space with Blanca to just be, and that Yearling treated Roja so gently. The bonds they formed felt so real and genuine, and Roja and Blanca had people fighting for them. They had people to help them break this damnable spell.

This was a gorgeous retelling of Snow-White and Rose-Red. But it was so unique, and it had all the flavor of an Anna-Marie McLemore book. A love for her culture and heritage that is infused in every line. Girls who just want to be able to feel their emotions and escape from the bounds of respectable. Characters who are at the edges of society, because everyone tells them that they’re not worth being at the center of attention, that they deserve less because they’re a little bit different. The way she writes about love, too. Romantic, familial, platonic. All of it. There is so much feeling in these pages because she allows her characters the room to make mistakes and grow. But nothing was as beautiful as the breathtaking love between these sisters, though. And like, god, the writing, you guys. Just *chef-kiss*

I had gone into the woods already broken, and now I had collected so many other ways of being broken, I could barely carry them.

The story of the ugly duckling was never about the cygnet discovering he is lovely. It is not a story about realizing you have become beautiful.It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were, and that what you are is more beautiful than what you once thought you had to be.

There were ways to carve away from your heart everything that did not truly belong, and still come back to life.

Disclaimer: I was provided an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This in no way impacted my review.

trigger warnings: violence/physical abuse, colorism (CHALLENGED)

There will always be two daughters. But we will always take one back

Anna-Marie McLemore is one of the most talented authors there has ever been. And with each piece of work of hers I read, she wows me even more. McLemore writes magical realism in a beautiful way, with language and wording that paints a picture so perfect it reDisclaimer: I was provided an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This in no way impacted my review.

trigger warnings: violence/physical abuse, colorism (CHALLENGED)

There will always be two daughters. But we will always take one back

Anna-Marie McLemore is one of the most talented authors there has ever been. And with each piece of work of hers I read, she wows me even more. McLemore writes magical realism in a beautiful way, with language and wording that paints a picture so perfect it reaches the reader's soul.

But the only one I could grab hold of was the one that held on to me, the one that had been written so deep into me that the woods turned me into part of it. "Snow-White and Rose-Red."

Blanca y Roja is a queer Latina re-telling of an age-old fairytale, Snow-White and Rose-Red. This is easily one of the best fairytale re-tellings I have ever read, if not the best.

Blanca y Roja is a story about sisterhood, love, hate, identity, abuse, magic, and more. Anything you could possibly be looking for in a story, Blanca y Roja will deliver.

McLemore is so unapologetic in how she writes Latinx culture into her work. It is so deeply brown to its core and that is something beautiful and something to be celebrated in a society that tries to stifle these voices. McLemore is also so unapologetic in how she writes queerness into her work, and Page, a genderqueer trans boy whose identity is based off her husband's, made my genderqueer heart soar.

That I was a boy, but it was not as simple as me wanting to be called he. That I liked being called he and him. But that I would've liked being called she and her sometimes, too, if it didn't let everyone settle into the assumption that I was a girl. I had never been a girl, would never be a girl...

Then, there was a subtle but obvious romance between two grandmothers in this work, and it was just another important celebration of queerness.

And in this, her fourth piece of work, McLemore also tackles a part of Latinx culture, and brown culture in general, that we often avoid discussing. She tackles colorism.

With our two main characters, two sisters, Blanca and Roja, Blanca is fair while Roja is brown. Blanca is blond and fair-skinned, while Roja has red hair and brown skin. And the way McLemore tackles colorism is somewhat subtle, but it is so there and it touched me to my core. Colorism is something that has affected my life as a darker-skinned Indian and McLemore being brave enough to tackle a subject that so many push under the rug meant absolutely everything to me.

In the dark, my sister glowed, but in the dark, I was the dark itself. Blanca, bright and fair Blanca, was the moon and all its stars. I was just her background to shimmer against.

This novel is told in four different points of view - Blanca, Roja, Page, and Yearling. Though multiple point of view novels can easily be badly written, McLemore does it perfectly. Each character has a distinct voice, a distinct personality, and a distinct story that brings more life to to this beautiful novel.

Blanca is obedient and graceful. She is the ideal good girl, the older sister who would do anything to protect her younger sister. She's a dreamer, she sees the good in the world and in people.

Roja, hands-down my favorite character, is fiery and resilient. She is neither good nor evil, but she is a fighter and she loves and hates and feels emotions with her whole heart. She has been looked down on by the world for her skin color, but she comes out stronger and will not take anyone's crap.

Page, my second favorite character, is unapologetically himself in a world that struggles to accept him. She loves with her whole heart, both her romance and her best friendship are two highlights in how pure and good she is.

Yearling is a complex character who comes from a rich family that he turns away from which leads to complexities he struggles with. His romance is much more angsty, and his character is just as angsty and he is such a well-developed character with so much depth.

Every character is constructed with so much thought and effort that you can't help but be invested in their story. But all these character's stories are interwoven with each other's and their connections are filled with so much emotion that it pulls the reader in and you can't escape.

I love every piece of McLemore's work that I read, and somehow she always manages to make the next one even better when I don't even belief that could be possible. Blanca y Roja is a beautiful story that I would recommend to absolutely anyone and everyone....more

Anna-Marie McLemore was born in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and taught by her family to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. Her debut novel THE WEIGHT OF FEATHERS was a Junior Library Guild Selection, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults book, and a finalist for the William C. Morris Debut Award. Her second novel, WHEN THE MOON WAS OURS, was longlisted for the National Book AwaAnna-Marie McLemore was born in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and taught by her family to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. Her debut novel THE WEIGHT OF FEATHERS was a Junior Library Guild Selection, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults book, and a finalist for the William C. Morris Debut Award. Her second novel, WHEN THE MOON WAS OURS, was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature, and was a 2017 Stonewall Honor Book. Her latest is WILD BEAUTY, and BLANCA & ROJA is forthcoming in fall of 2018. ...more

“That was the thing neither Roja nor the senoras understood. Sometimes what a story needed was not a girl who would do what the prince told her, who would content herself with meeting him only in the dark, who would not question why she must not open her eyes. Sometimes a story needed the girl who would find him among the crumbling stones where he did pretending all o fit was a castle. It needed the girl who took the prince’s orders and crushed them between her back teeth, who bound his wrists if that was what it took to set him free.”
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